This article discusses the role played by medical narratives. After explanatory research and careful content analysis of the material published about the subject it was possible to conclude that medical narratives are a major issue for those physicians and scholars concerned with the immediate future of medical education. To encompass the broad range of articles and books about the subject, this article was divided into three parts for a better presentation of the presently most common forms of discussion around the issue. In the first part we elaborate a classification of medical narratives; the second highlights the links between Medicine and Literature, considered a fundamental tool for the improvement of narrative competence, so necessary for the diagnostic process based on the history of the disease narrated by the patient.Finally we discuss the today's positioning of specialists with respect to the role of the narrative in the field of medical ethics. It also points out that a narrative epistemology has always been contained in medical education and practice.
Narrative Medicine; Medicine in Literature; Education, Medical